Arbëresh (; also known as Arbërisht, , Lingua Albanese d'Italia, Italo-albanese) comprises the Albanian linguistic varieties spoken by the Arbëreshë people of Italy, brought there by several migratory waves of Albanians from Albania and Greece since the Late Middle Ages. Arbëresh varieties are derived from the old Tosk Albanian varieties spoken in the south-western Balkans, and throughout the centuries they have developed in Italy in contact with the neighboring Italo-Romance-speaking communities. Other Tosk Albanian varieties from the Late Middle Ages referred to as Arvanitika (endonym: ) are spoken in Greece by the Arvanites. (1592) by Luca Matranga from Piana degli Albanesi is the earliest known Old Tosk text, a translation of a catechism book from Latin.
The Arbëreshë people are bilingual, also speaking Italian. Arbëresh is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. While Italian law protects the language and culture of the Albanian people in Italy, the language taught at school and university is Standard Albanian, constituting an issue for the Arbëresh communities' preservation of their native idiom, which has remained separated from the main Albanian-speaking compact area for around 500 years. Alongside the fact that Arbëresh is rarely written, another issue contributing to language attrition is the differentiation between the Albanian varieties used in Italy: the Arbëresh local idioms in some areas are so different from each other that Arbëresh people of those areas use Italian or Standard Albanian as a lingua franca to communicate with each other.Jenny Frost, The Arbëreshë: Italy's Albanian Diaspora, The Cambridge Language Collective: "Arbëresh (or Arbërisht) is the language spoken by the Arbëreshë community in Italy, descending from a medieval Tosk variety and containing influences from Italian. However, the language is now considered endangered; there are estimated to be fewer than 80,000 remaining native speakers worldwide. This can be put down to multiple factors: while some schools and universities in Rome and Southern Italy do teach the Albanian language, the version taught is standard Albanian rather than Arbëresh. Additionally, young people are often reluctant to use Arbëresh, preferring to use Standard Italian or Italo-Romance dialects, and because forms of Arbëresh can differ between communities, standard Albanian can sometimes be used as a lingua franca."
History
Between the 11th and 14th centuries, Albanian-speaking mercenaries from the areas of medieval Albania, Epirus and Morea now Peloponesse, were often recruited by the Franks, Aragonese, Italians and Byzantines.
The invasion of the Balkans by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century caused large waves of emigration from the Balkans to southern Italy. In 1448, the King of Naples, Alfonso V of Aragon, asked the Albanian noble Skanderbeg to transfer to his service ethnic Albanian mercenaries. Led by Demetrio Reres and his two sons, these men and their families were settled in twelve villages in the Catanzaro area of Calabria. The following year, some of their relatives and other Albanians were settled in four villages in Sicily. In 1459 Ferdinand I of Naples also requested assistance from Skanderbeg. After victories in two battles, a second contingent of Albanians was rewarded with land east of Taranto, in Apulia, where they founded 15 villages. After the death of Skanderbeg (1468), resistance to the Ottomans in Albania came to an end. Subsequently, many Albanians fled to neighbouring countries and some settled in villages in Calabria.
There was a constant flow of ethnic Albanians into Italy into the 16th century, and other Albanian villages were formed on Italian soil. The new immigrants often took up work as mercenaries with Italian armies. For instance, between 1500 and 1534, Albanians from central Greece were employed as mercenaries by Venice, to evacuate its colonies in the Peloponnese, as the Turks invaded. Afterwards these troops reinforced defences in southern Italy against the threat of Turkish invasion. They established self-contained communities, which enabled their distinct language and culture to flourish. Arbëreshë, as they became known, were often soldiers for the Kingdom of Naples and the Republic of Venice, between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Despite an Arbëreshë cultural and artistic revival in the 19th century, emigration from southern Italy significantly reduced the population. In particular, migration to the Americas between 1900 and 1940 caused the total depopulation of approximately half of the Arbëreshë villages. The speech community forms part of the highly heterogenous linguistic landscape of Italy, with 12 recognised linguistic minorities Italian state law (law 482/1999). The exact Arbëresh speech population is uncertain, as the Italian national census does not collect data on minority language speakers. This is also further complicated by the Italian state's protection of the Albanian culture and population as a whole and not Arbëresh Albanian specifically. This law theoretically implements specific measures in various fields such as education, communication, radio, press and TV public service, but in the case of the Arberesh community the legal construction of the language as "Albanian" and the community as the "Albanian population" effectively homogenises the language and has not led to adequate provision for the linguistic needs of the communities.
Classification
Arbëresh varieties derive from varieties of Old Tosk Albanian, which were spoken in southern Albania and Greece. They have experienced a similar evolutionary pattern to Arvanitika, the Albanian linguistic varieties spoken in Greece. Arbëresh varieties are spoken in Southern Italy in the regions of Abruzzi, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Apulia and Sicily. The varieties of Arbëresh are closely related to each other but are not always entirely mutually intelligible.
Arbëresh retains many features of medieval Albanian from the time before the Ottoman invasion of Albania in the 15th century. Arbëresh varieties also retain some Greek elements, including vocabulary and pronunciation, most of which they share with Arvanitika varieties. Many of the conservative features of Arbëresh were lost in mainstream Albanian Tosk. For example, it has preserved certain syllable-initial consonant clusters which have been simplified in Standard Albanian (cf. Arbëresh ('language/tongue'), vs. Standard Albanian ). Arbëresh most resembles the varieties of Albanian spoken in the southern region of Albania, notably Lab Albanian, as well as Cham Albanian.
Arbëresh was commonly called ('Albanian' in the Italian language) in Italy until the 1990s. Until the 1980s Arbëresh was mostly a spoken language, except for its written form used in the Italo-Albanian Byzantine Church, and Arbëreshë people had no practical connection with the Standard Albanian language – which was unified as a mainly Gheg-based standard from 1908 to 1969, and as a mainly Tosk-based standard from 1969 – as they did not use the standard Albanian form of writing.
Since the 1980s, some efforts have been organized to preserve the cultural and linguistic heritage of the language.
Arbëresh has been replaced by local Romance languages and by Italian in several villages, and in others is experiencing contact-induced language shift. Many scholars have produced language learning materials for communities, including those by Giuseppe Schirò Di Maggio, Gaetano Gerbino, Matteo Mandalà, Zef Chiaramonte.
The Arbëresh local idioms in some areas are so different from each other that Arbëresh people of those areas use Italian or Standard Albanian as lingua franca to communicate with each other.
Language or dialect Arbëresh language beside medieval mainland Tosk Albanian is also descended from Arvanitika which evolved separately from other forms of Albanian since the 13th century when its first speakers emigrated to Morea from Southern Albania and Epirus. A dialect is defined linguistically as closely related and, despite their differences, by mutual intelligibility. In the absence of rigorous linguistic intelligibility tests, the claim cannot be made whether one is a dialect or a separate variant of the same language group.Derhemi, Eda. Language endangerment and maintenance in the Arbresh of Piana degli Albanesi. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003.Di Maggio, Martin Hasan. "Arbëresh: language mixing, translanguaging and possible solutions to maintenance problems."
Varieties
The varieties of Arbëresh largely correspond with the regions where they are spoken, while some settlements have distinctive features that result in greater or lesser degrees of mutual intelligibility.
The Siculo-Arbëresh variety is spoken exclusively in the Province of Palermo and in three villages: Piana degli Albanesi, Santa Cristina Gela and Contessa Entellina; while the varieties of Piana and Santa Cristina Gela are similar enough to be entirely mutually intelligible, the variety of Contessa Entellina is not entirely intelligible. Therefore a further dialect within Siculo-Arbëresh known as the Palermitan-Arbëresh variety can be identified,Mandala', M., & Mandala' M (2005). Siculo-arbëresh e siciliano a contatto: alcune verifiche. In Der Einfluss des Italienischen auf die Grammatik der Minderheitensprachen. Morphologische und syntaktische Probleme (pagg. 13-21) as well as a Cosenza variety, a Basilicata variety, and a Campania variety represented by the speech of one single settlement of Greci. There is also a Molisan-Arbëresh and an Apulio-Arbëresh.
Within the Cosenza Calabrian varieties of Arbëresh, the dialect of Vaccarizzo Albanese is particularly distinct. Spoken in the villages of Vaccarizzo Albanese and San Giorgio Albanese in Calabria by approximately 3,000 people, Vaccarizzo Albanian has retained many archaic features of both Gheg and Tosk dialects.
Phonology
Some features of Arbëresh distinguish it considerably from standard Albanian while also maintaining features still used in other Tosk Albanian dialects. In some cases these are retentions of older pronunciations.
Vowels Ë
The letter is pronounced as either a mid central vowel or as a close back unrounded vowel . So the word is pronounced either or depending on the dialect.
Y to I
Arbëresh lacks the close front rounded vowel of Albanian, which is replaced by the close front unrounded vowel . For example ('you') becomes , and ('enter') becomes .
Consonants
GJ, Q
The letters and are pronounced as a palatalized voiced velar plosive and a palatalized voiceless velar plosive , rather than a voiced palatal plosive and a voiceless palatal plosive as in standard Albanian. E.g. the word ('all') is pronounced rather than , ('heaven') is pronounced rather than , and ('Albanian') is pronounced .
GL, KL
In some words, Arbëresh has preserved the consonant clusters and . In Standard Albanian these have mostly become the palatal stops gj and q, e.g. not ('s/he looks like ... '), not ('milk'), and instead of ('church').
H, HJ
The letter is pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative . As such, the Albanian word ('eat') is pronounced , not . Arbëresh additionally has the palatalized counterpart, . Therefore, the word ('throw') is pronounced . The letter combination is present in a few standard Albanian words (without a voiceless velar fricative), but is not treated as a separate letter of the alphabet as it is in Arbëresh.
LL, G, GH